Last-minute polls put New Democracy in the lead

Two opinion polls published just hours before an election silence kicks in put New Democracy ahead of main opposition SYRIZA by 6.5 and 5 percentage points, respectively.

A Pulse poll for SKAI gave New Democracy a 6.5-point lead over SYRIZA while an MRB poll for OPEN TV put conservatives 5 points ahead.

In terms of voting intention, the Pulse/SKAI poll put New Democracy on 33%, followed by SYRIZA on 26.5%, socialist PASOK on 9%, communist KKE on 6%, nationalist Greek Solution on 3.5% and Yanis Varoufakis’ MeRA25 on 4%.

In the MRB/OPEN poll, New Democracy were on 31.4%, followed by SYRIZA on 26.4%, PASOK on 8.3%, KKE on 5.6%, Greek Solution on 3.2% and MeRA25 on 3.1%.

When asked about their preference for a government after the elections, 39% of respondents in the Pulse/SKAI poll said they would prefer a government under incumbent Kyriakos Mitsotakis, compared to 27% who wanted to see SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras at the helm. One in five said neither leader was preferable.

In the MRB/OPEN poll, 46.3% of respondents said that if Sunday’s election does not produce a single-party government, they would like to see fresh elections, compared to 45.5% who said they would prefer a coalition government.